


up and down the line

by pawn_vs_player



Series: it takes and it takes and it takes (aka: Adrian writes fic to cope with Infinity War) [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Violence, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Experimental Style, Gen, Infinity Gauntlet, Inspired By Tumblr, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Speculation, Tony Stark Wields the Infinity Gauntlet, which is where the speculation comes in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 11:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15629316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player
Summary: Time is linear. Not everything is trapped moving in one direction.The consequences of, for example, holding a cosmic gem, flow both ways.(A non-chronological Tony character study, centered on the shaking of his left hand.)





	up and down the line

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by some tumblr posts discussing the motif of tony's left arm trembling or hurting/being hurt, and the speculation that it's because he's going to wield the gauntlet on his left hand.  
> i literally wrote this in three (3) hours today with a single (1) bathroom break pls leave a comment if you like this

**i.**

your hand keeps twitching. it's halfway between numb and painful, the "pins and needles" feeling jarvis calls it when you ask. he says your hand fell asleep, and you should be careful how much pressure you put on it and how often you move it.

jarvis is smart, smarter than your father when it comes to some things (though you'd never dare say that aloud). you believe him.

 

**v.**

the whiskey is sloshing around in your glass. your hand won't stay still. you slur your words harder, stumble a little, say something that makes the blonde clinging to your side giggle. 

pins and needles. your fingers ache. you take another sip, let it splash onto your shirt. you make your excuses and go to the bathroom.

you hold your wrist and flex your fingers until it stops. there's still a phantom ache, but your hand is steady. 

you go back outside.

 

**vi.**

blood spreads across your chest. your own name shines dully in the sun. your hand is going numb. your chest hurts, sharp and clear.

your trembling fingers dig into the hot sand. pins and needles. it's not so bad.

something is ripping into you, inside your chest. you close your eyes.

 

**ii.**

your fingers are spasming on the keys. sorry, you say, sorry sorry sorry. i can't control it, you say, clutching at your wrist with your other hand to make the discordant notes stop. numbness, aching heat. pins and needles. 

it's alright, bambino, mama says. we'll take a break. flex your wrist, wiggle your fingers. that should help.

(nothing helps, you don't say. nothing helps. i just have to wait it out.)

 

**vii.**

there is no anesthetic in afghani caves. they strap you down to the table so you won't fight as the doctor works.

calm, he says again and again. calm. i'm trying to save you.

your hand twitches and spasms against the table. stop, you can't say. stop, it hurts, stop, let me die - 

pins and needles. your fingers are pale and thin, grimy with blood and sand. it hurts so much.

 

**iv.**

your best friend is quiet and still against white sheets. the bones in your left hand ache with a searing heat, making your fingers shiver and curl up like a dying spider.

rhodey is not meant to be this still. 

wake up, honeybear, you tell him. the beep of the machines is so loud it almost swallows your words. wake the hell up. your mom's worried about you.

pins and needles. the pain in your fingers throbs with your heartbeat, in tune with his heart monitor. wake up, you ass, you whisper. 

 

**viii.**

your hand trembles. you're holding a battery, you need your hands steady. you tap with the spasms, a manic pattern with no rhythm.

pins and needles. numbness and heat. your name on piles of weaponry. build a jericho for us, they say. build us a bomb and we will let you go.

no they won't, you say. you know they can't understand you, but you aren't talking to them.

no, they won't, agrees the man who saved your life. 

your fingers are still.

 

**iii.**

blood drips down to the floor. iron and salt are thick in your mouth: you've bitten through your lip. 

come on, you say. come on, please. please.

pins and needles. you've been working for so long that your fingers are red and numb. your left hand is shaking helplessly. there's a pulsing ache in your chest that isn't from hunger.

please, you murmur, fiddling with the wires. please, come on. let's not prove ty right, the fucking dummy, i'm not like him - 

beep.

it sounds... inquisitive, somehow. you freeze. (your hand won't stop shaking.)

the monitor beside you is lit up. long green lines of code are running, finally. 

oh, fuck yes. 

you throw your arms around it. it's a hunk of metal with a claw at the end, you know, it's not a person (not yet), but god damn it - 

beep.

hey, buddy, you rasp. (you are not crying.) happy birthday.

you wrap your hand around its claw and bring your combined arms up and down. nice to meet you. 

your fingers are steady around its wrist.

 

**x.**

no, you say. your eyes burn from more than the smoke. you need to go home to your family.

this was always the plan, stark, he says.

pins and needles. your hand trembles against his chest. he saved you but you can't save him.

don't waste your life, he says.

the gauntlets cover the shaking of your fingers as you burn the ten rings to the ground.

 

**ix.**

that could run your heart for fifty lifetimes, he says. his hands were surgeon-steady on the tongs as he brought the cup of palladium over to you, as he poured it into the frame. he is steady in every aspect, even when he is afraid or hurt.

pins and needles. your hand twitches. you turn the movement into a beat, fingers tap-tap-tapping against the light in your chest.

or something big for fifteen minutes, you reply. (you don't need to get out of here so long as your captors don't either.)

 

**xv.**

you know that's a one way trip, says the man who haunted your entire childhood. you don't reply.

pins and needles. the gauntlets hide the tremble of your fingers, hands curved around the bomb.

don't waste your life, yinsen told you once, before he died. you think maybe he'd be proud of you.

your hands are still as you pass through the portal.

 

**xiv.**

you are my greatest creation, your father says. the video has been playing for two hours. you can't make yourself turn it off. you are working. 

pins and needles. your hands shake and you put down your materials. you have jarvis throw up holograms instead. your chest aches. you can feel the slow creep in your veins, the black crawling up your neck and down your arms.

the side of your neck throbs. you knew rushman wasn't what she seemed. keep your friends close and your enemies closer. (what happens when you can't tell the difference, though, tony? don't you remember the caves? the sand and the blood and the water? don't you remember obie?) you wanted to see what she'd do.

pepper is calling. you don't pick up.

sir, jarvis says. sir, do you feel ready to try again?

you look down at your hands. one is tapping against your thigh. the other is still.

yeah, you say. you are my greatest creation, your father says in the background. turn that off, jay, you decide. i need to concentrate.

your fingers ache, but they are steady.

 

**xi.**

you can feel the shrapnel digging through your veins, tearing through your flesh as they progress toward your heart. ice spreads in their wake. you are so cold. your chest hurts so much.

pins and needles. your hands shake as you drag yourself along the ground. you can't draw a full breath. you can barely breathe at all.

you reach for the table, fingers trembling. your hands are numb and clumsy, like a newborn's hands - you hit the case with the old reactor, push it back on the table. out of your reach.

you collapse backward. you're going to die. you're going to die, and obie's going to kill pepper, and sell weapons you made to kill millions of others. you've failed. you're going to die and it's your own fault. you've wasted your life.

beep.

glass crashes to the ground beside you. a claw-hand wraps around an outdated heart, stretches out toward you. offers you life.

your hand twitches against the ground. pins and needles. you can't breathe.

you slot the reactor into your chest with difficulty and take a deep, wheezing breath. (it hurts. of course it hurts. it's worth it.)

thanks, buddy, you say. (it's not enough. nothing would be enough.)

beep.

you get up. you taste iron and salt and you know there's damage, you can feel the rips in your chest, but you don't care. (you don't have time to care.)

you need to stop him. you need to get in the suit. 

your hands are steady when you hug your firstborn son. thanks, buddy, you say again, and you run for the suit.

 

**xvi.**

you're alive. holy shit, you're alive. you were in space with a nuke and now you're on earth, in your suit, surrounded by people who helped save the world. and you're alive.

you're hungry. the others are hungry too, or maybe shell-shocked enough to go along with your usual insanity.

pins and needles. your hand trembles as you eat. you can't wear the gauntlets when you hold food. you hide your hand under the table.

you're alive. captain america smiled when he saw you were alive. new york is safe. you beat back an alien army. you're alive.

your hand won't stop shaking.

 

**xiii.**

the reactor is killing you. you can't stop laughing. or crying. both. 

you're drunk. you're really, really drunk. you don't want to think. the alcohol puts a thick, golden haze over your brain. you don't want to think. you drink instead.

pins and needles. your hand aches and twitches. alcohol spills down your shirt. you drink what's left and get more. you spill that too. you don't care.

you're dying. the thing keeping you alive is killing you. you can't stop laughing. 

tears are falling into your glass. you drink it anyway.

your hand keeps twitching. you switch your glass to the other hand.

 

**xii.**

obadiah stane has a small, private funeral. the media is kept at bay with locked doors.

it is not in a church; obadiah stane was not a religious man. it is not in a graveyard; obadiah stane did not want to rot under the earth with all those other millions of bodies.

you are one of two people who attend obadiah stane's funeral. you, who ordered his death, because he ordered yours and betrayed you and sold the lives of millions - you, and the one relative left. his cousin. he was an only child, but his father had a brother, and the brother had a daughter, and obadiah never kept in contact but she came here anyway. 

she doesn't say anything, and neither do you. the two of you look at the silver urn instead.

(obadiah stane was not a religious man. in his will he said he wanted to be burned and not buried, not because he believed in one god over another, but because he wanted to rest alone.)

pins and needles. your hands are so cold. your fingers spasm around your wrist. you can't look away, and you can't look at it either. your eyes burn.

i'll take it, she says eventually. my dad would have wanted it that way.

(her parents died twenty years ago, together. a boat in a storm, a fall and a failed rescue. she is twenty-seven.)

you nod. your tongue is thick and heavy in your mouth. you tap a nervous rhythm against your chest, the solid surface he pulled out of your body.

you're alive. he's dead. you turn away and walk out.

 

**xvii.**

sentry mode, you order, sliding out of the armor. it's right there. finally, you can clean up the last of loki's mess. (the stars shine behind your eyes, cold and endless. there's someone out there, waiting. they're coming.)

pins and needles. the scepter glows violent blue. your hand shakes. your vision blurs.

you are in your worst nightmare.

 

**xx.**

i'm leaving, you tell steve. maybe you're hoping he'll tell you to stay. he doesn't. you aren't surprised.

pins and needles. your fingers tremble around the steering wheel. jay, you say, and bite your tongue hard enough to taste iron. 

 

**xix.**

veronica, you yell. deploy!

your friend is rampaging through a city (again). you need to stop him. you need to stop him before he hurts more people (gives himself more reason to hate himself). 

pins and needles. your chest aches. your fingers shudder, curl into a fist and flex back out. the familiar numb heat twinges through your nerves. you grit your teeth. 

this isn't going to be easy. but someone has to stop him before more damage is done, and that someone is gonna have to be you.

veronica's gauntlet is massive. your hand, held tight in layer upon layer of metal, straightens out and stills.

 

**xxi.**

tracing the signal of the quinjet is easy. you know where he is. you could go get him right now, tell him what steve's done, ask for advice, lean on him and convince him to lean on you, too.

pins and needles. your hand twitches. you remember the look in the hulk's eyes as you brought down your armored fist again and again.

you close the screen and turn away. fri, you say. your chest aches. pull up the clean energy initiative, mark nineteen.

 

**xviii.**

ultron.

god, why can't you do anything right? you try and try and try to make things right, to help people, to protect people, and all you do is get more people killed.

jarvis. jarvis is dead. your brightest son, the one who never wanted a body, the one who spread farther than any of his siblings - he's dead, gutted and cannibalized by your newest child, your bastard son mothered by the scepter and fostered by lightning. 

pins and needles. your hands shake and shake and shake. you are so cold. the fingers of your left hand convulse every once in a while, bending sharply against your palm and straightening out with an almost-audible snap. it hurts, pain radiating up to your elbow, fire-hot and just as agonizing. 

you've killed your child. your new child, your bastard son, is killing more people. you don't have time for this. you don't have time for your body to glitch out on you. you have work to do.

your fingers tremble. you work anyway. 

 

**xxviii.**

mom. oh god, mom.

your hand curls into a fist without conscious thought. he killed your mom. barnes killed your mom, and you're watching it happen, and he killed. your. mom.

steve knew. steve knew, and he lied to you.

your fingers, curled into that tight fist, are perfectly steady.

you punch steve rogers in the face.

 

**xxii.**

you've known this was coming for a damn long time. you've been waiting for it. you keep your ear to the ground, you listen to politicians and international governments. you listen. you pay attention.

the accords have been in the works since new york, but sokovia (not sokovia, really. johannesburg. but sokovia was bigger and brighter and so that's what they call them) made everything more urgent. made everyone more afraid.

you go to the un. they're not expecting you. you resigned, after all.

i am iron man, you said years ago. i'm still iron man, you say now. i want to help people, in or out of the suit. besides, i'm better with legalese than anyone on the avengers team right now.

they hand you the current draft. it's a thousand pages long, longer even. it takes you a couple hours.

your fingers shake a little. the marks of the pen are a little squiggly.

looks alright, you say. could use improvements.

what do you have in mind, mr stark? asks the representative from south africa. (he wants the hulk's head on a platter. you need to turn his anger elsewhere.)

you talk. it's what you're best at, after all.

 

**xxvi.**

rhodey. oh god, rhodey.

pins and needles. your hands shake as you cradle your best friend in your lap. he's breathing, but you have no idea how long that'll last.

this was supposed to be a talk. this was just supposed to be a talk. 

rhodey might die.  

this ends now.

 

**xxiii.**

steve rogers does not even read the full document (you've pared it down as much as you could. it's still thick but it's not over-two-thousand-pages thick) before he condemns it. sam wilson, his loyal puppy, backs him up. wanda (the witch, red at her fingertips, your stomach twists and you see a cracked shield and bloody hands) agrees. of course she agrees. she can't afford responsibility. she can't afford accountability. if she signs, steve can't protect her from her hydra past and what she did there. (you read the files. you couldn't sleep for a week. you wonder if the hulk has gone back to bruce yet, or if he's still too afraid to be vulnerable.)

pins and needles. this is necessary. your fingers tremble, out of sight of the table. they have to sign, they have to, it's the right thing to do and steve rogers (captain america) is all about the right thing to do. 

your chest aches. your fingertips burn. natasha looks the document over and you see the glint in her eye: she'll sign because she knows that oversight is better than being out of the game.

steve's phone rings. (you don't know it yet, but it's right here any chance you had at convincing him vanishes.)

 

**xxv.**

wanda throws cars at you. you're not surprised. she hates you, will always hate you, of course you are her first target. 

what surprises you is her aim. they knock you down and you fall, and at least one if not more land directly over your left arm.

for a moment, you want to laugh. you choke on a hysterical giggle and think, of course. of course.

your arm hurts, sharp and clear. it's not broken, but thousands of pounds of metal on such a small surface area hurt. you blast your way free and fly up, up, where she can't throw anything else on top of you.

you flex your hand. it hurts, throbbing and stabbing all the way to your shoulder, centered in your fingers and your wrist, but you can move it. your fingers hurt, but they move when and how you tell them to.

you dive back into the fight.

 

**xxiv.**

she threw him through the floor. dozens of floors. she hurt him. if it had been anyone else (except maybe hulk or thor), she would have killed them.

and she calls you the monster.

he says he's fine. he says it's okay, he's ready to help, we need to stop them. he's fine, sir (your chest aches), let's go. 

your fingers clench, arm trembling with anger. you want to hit her. you want - 

you won't. but god, you want to. 

 

**xxvii.**

watch your back, he'll break it, clint taunts.

for a moment, you cannot move. fury fills you, incandescent and burning, you are a volcano ready to erupt, ready to burn and crush and swallow everything in your way, lifeblood of the earth carving a path through your skin. you could kill him, just now, you could turn around and open the cell and kill him with your bare hands.

hands that shake, at your side and in the sling, fingers that tingle with the desire to murder a man you called your friend once upon a time.

you clench your fist. in the sling, your fingers twitch toward your palm, curl as much as they can.

you walk away, fury dwindling to embers under your skin.

 

**xxix.**

this kid is going to be the death of you.

you answer his call with a drink in your hand and flowers around your neck. you wanted a vacation, was that so much to ask? just a week or two of peace. just a week or two where you could lay aside atlas' burden and not be tony stark, iron man, the man who saves the world.

pins and needles. your fingers twinge and tremble. you frown at them. 

 

**xxx.**

oh god.

oh god, oh god, oh god.

no.

no no no no no no no no no no no no 

(mr stark, i don't feel so good)

no no no no no no no no 

(there was no other way)

no no no no no no this isn't happening no 

(i don't want to die)

this can't be happening

(mr stark, please)

this cannot be happening, this just can't be happening

your hands are shaking. you are shaking. your abdomen twinges from where you were stabbed (you aren't worth this) and your arm aches from fingertip to shoulder and your chest aches from somewhere deep inside your ribcage.

your hands are shaking, pressed to the ground in front of you. (pressed against the dust of a boy you were responsible for.) your hands are wet. your face is wet.

get up, says the woman you met today. get up. we don't have time to grieve.

you can't stop crying. you can't breathe. 

she grabs your shoulder, hauls you to your feet. come on, she says, rough but not cruel. we have to stop him.

that makes you breathe. what? you demand, digging your heels into the ground. (you are still crying.) what the hell is there to stop?

we can kill him, she snarls. her eyes are black and bright at the same time. her hand clicks and buzzes, a knuckle warping into place. we will kill him, and when we kill him, we take the gauntlet from him. with the gauntlet - with the time stone - 

we can fix it, you whisper.

she lets go of you. you stand on your own two feet, swaying a little, aching. you feel like thanos scooped out the insides of your chest and filled it back up with broken glass.

we will fix it, she says. you look at her. she stands strong and tall, but you can see it. she's lost someone too. maybe multiple someones. she understands. she's grieving, but she stands up anyway.

she's not letting this break her.

you can't let this break you.

yeah, you say. yeah, okay. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**i.**

With one smooth, beautiful stroke of Nebula's blade, Thanos' arm is separated from his body. It hits the ground with a wet thunk that makes your stomach turn.

"Tony, now!" she yells over Thanos' bellow of pain. "Now!"

You run, twisting away from Thanos' frantic swipe with his remaining arm and scooping the disgusting piece of flesh off the ground. The extra suits you brought cover you, buying you time as you pull at the gauntlet.

This time, there is much more give. Apparently, once separated from the rest of his body, the stones don't cling to their wielder. 

The gauntlet pops free with an awful squelch. You don't have time to let it effect you. As soon as the gauntlet comes free, you shove your free arm inside.

It's a heady feeling, holding the power of the universe in the palm of your hand. You could do anything. You could do everything.

(You know what happens when you try to do too much. You know better.)

 _What do you wish?_ the Stones ask, sibilant and not quite there, a thrumming hissing vibration in the back of your mind. You close your eyes, take a grip on yourself, and think through the words of your request.

 _Undo what Thanos has done,_ you declare.  _All those people he's killed. Bring them back._

The gauntlet shines. Faintly, you are aware that your arm feels like it's on fire, like it's being torn free from the rest of your body, that your fingers are spasming like the legs of a dying spider. Faintly, you are aware that this is probably going to kill you.

The gauntlet shines. Your arm burns. Your chest aches and throbs, and distantly, from somewhere beyond your body, you hear billions of heartbeats begin again.

You smile.


End file.
